was this totally due to hurricane sandy or what was it? >> probably totally due to hurricane sandy. we'll know within a couple of weeks. if they come back down to lower levels, which is 50 or 60,000 lower than we saw in the latest number, we'll know it was a one-time thing. there is a lot of other things going on. we know that big businesses and small businesses both have stopped hiring if they don't have to and stopped spending money until they figure out what these guys in washington are going to do about this fiscal cliff we keep hearing about. they have a lot of reasons not to be hiring people. that could be showing up in the numbers as well. >> gretchen: jennifer, i think a lot of people were stunned at this number because the expectation was 375,000 claims. it was so much higher than that that some people who wanted to be cynical would say, oh, my goodness, this is the week after the election. look where the unemployment number went. it's suddenly higher. >> right. hurricane sandy did absolutely have something to do with it, just like katrina did in 2005. but the president own